Decision Support Issues in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Universities in Central and Eastern Europe are caught between enforced data reporting (because the governments want them to account for their activities and performance) and institutional research for strategic development (because universities want to do better). Since the capacity for institutional research is in most universities still fairly limited (there are a few institutional researchers employed and these tend to work with centralized, yet non-integrated information systems), the emphasis of institutional research tends to be more on formal reporting than on supporting decision-making. Given that majority of universities in the region is still predominantly funded by the state, government steering crucially influences university practices. In most of national systems the governments have not developed performance-oriented financing and quality assurance mechanisms that would, in turn, prompt universities to adapt performance- oriented management practices with data analytics as a vital part.Keywords:Institutional research; university strategy; quality assurance; European Union's modernisation agenda for universities; Central and Eastern Europe